Coal India to spend Rs 10,600 crore on hiking output

KOLKATA: State-run Coal India, the country’s largest producer of the fuel, will spend Rs 10,600 crore this fiscal year on raising its production capacity and ramping up infrastructure, according to its annual report.

The company has also provisioned Rs 500 crore for its Mozambique project, although this fund is likely to remain unspent.

In 2014-15, Coal India had spent Rs 5,173 crore on projects against a targeted investment of Rs 5,225 crore.

For the current fiscal, the company has earmarked Rs 5,990 crore for ramping up capacity and taking on new projects, which will help it achieve a production target of 1 billion tonne by 2020. Of this, 908 million tonne has already been firmed up while the rest is being charted.

It has also kept aside close to Rs 4,150 crore for investment in infrastructure projects this year, including railway infrastructure, which will ensure coal evacuation from areas not easily accessible.

The Coal India board had earlier approved an investment of Rs 5,894 crore spread over the next two-three years on two railway lines—Tori-Shivpur-Kathotia in Jharkhand and Kharsia-Korichapar-Dharamjaigarh in Chhattisgarh. It had also approved an investment of Rs 11,363 crore in two 800 MW coalbased super critical thermal power plants under its subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields.

The company’s existing projects are envisaged to contribute about 165 million tonne of coal towards its 1 billion tonne target, while projects under implementation are likely to contribute 561 million tonne and future projects about 182 million tonne by 2019-20.